I can’t tell you how happy I was to read about the success the city is having with capturing drug dealers and attempting to clean up our neighborhoods. However, I do take offense to the chief’s remarks, “You can’t change a zebra’s stripes, but you can change the environment they live in.”

Firstly, people are human, full with potential to err. If as a society we believe that people don’t change, then we might as well incarcerate criminals forever. If our prison/jail systems do not offer education and training, support and encouragement, while one is incarcerated and after release, then how will change happen?

We (humans) are a condition of our environment. If we grew up poor in dangerous neighbors with absentee parents, chances are we will struggle in life from a lack of positive role models in our life. If our criminal justice system is not attempting to rehabilitate offenders, to alter one’s belief system, and assist in reinforcing one’s potential, then perhaps the zebra will never learn that polka dots exist.